Calibration-based tool condition monitoring for repetitive machining operations

Reliable tool condition monitoring (TCM) system is essential for any machining process in mass production to control the part quality as well as reduce the machine tool downtime and maintenance costs. However, while various research studies have proposed their TCM systems, the complexity in setups with advanced decision-making algorithms and specificity in application to limited cutting conditions continue to complicate the implementation of these systems into practical scenarios. This study develops a very simple and flexible TCM system for repetitive machining operations. The proposed monitoring approach reduces the complexity of monitoring model by considering the important characteristic of repeatability in process which has been commonly found in the mass production scenario and implements the calibration procedure to improve the flexibility of the model application to actual machining processes with complex toolpath designs and variable cutting conditions. The selected cutting tools with specific tool conditions are used in the calibration phase to generate reference signals. In actual repetitive production, the collected signal generated by the cutting tool in each operation is compared with reference signals to identify the most similar condition of the reference tool through the proposed similarity analysis. To validate the performance, the current study demonstrates the application of proposed monitoring approach to monitor the tool wear in repetitive milling operations with complex toolpath, and the predicted tool wear progression is found to be in good agreement with experimental measurements during the machining of multiple parts over the entire tool life.     

Force-torque based on-line tool wear estimation system for CNC milling of Inconel 718 using neural networks

In a modern machining system, tool condition monitoring systems are needed to get higher quality production and to prevent the downtime of machine tools due to catastrophic tool failures. Also, in precision machining processes surface quality of the manufactured part can be related to the conditions of the cutting tools. This increases industrial interest for in-process tool condition monitoring (TCM) systems. TCM supported modern unmanned manufacturing process is an integrated system composed of sensors, signal processing interface and intelligent decision making strategies. This study includes key considerations for development of an online TCM system for milling of Inconel 718 superalloy. An effective and efficient strategy based on artificial neural networks (ANN) is presented to estimate tool flank wear. ANN based decision making model was trained by using real time acquired three axis (F_x, F_y, F_z) cutting force and torque (M_z) signals and also with cutting conditions and time. The presented ANN model demonstrated a very good statistical performance with a high correlation and extremely low error ratio between the actual and predicted values of flank wear.     

A sensor fusion and support vector machine based approach for recognition of complex machining conditions

During the machining process of thin-walled parts, machine tool wear and work-piece deformation always co-exist, which make the recognition of machining conditions very difficult. Existing machining condition monitoring approaches usually consider only one single condition, i.e., either tool wear or work-piece deformation. In order to close this gap, a machining condition recognition approach based on multi-sensor fusion and support vector machine (SVM) is proposed. A dynamometer sensor and an acceleration sensor are used to collect cutting force signals and vibration signals respectively. Wavelet decomposition is utilized as a signal processing method for the extraction of signal characteristics including means and variances of a certain degree of the decomposed signals. SVM is used as a condition recognition method by using the means and variances of signals as well as cutting parameters as the input vector. Information fusion theory at the feature level is adopted to assist the machining condition recognition. Experiments are designed to demonstrate and validate the feasibility of the proposed approach. A condition recognition accuracy of about 90 % has been achieved during the experiments.     

Identification of milling inserts in situ based on a versatile machine vision system

This paper proposes a novel method for in situ localization of multiple inserts by means of machine vision techniques, a challenging issue in the field of tool wear monitoring. Most existing research works focus on evaluating the wear of isolated inserts after been manually extracted from the head tool. The method proposed solves this issue of paramount importance, as it frees the operator from continuously monitoring the machining process and allows the machine to continue operating without extracting the milling head for wear evaluation. We use trainable COSFIRE filters without requiring any manual intervention. This trainable approach is more versatile and generic than previous works on the topic, as it is not based on, and does not require, any domain knowledge. This allows an automatic application of the method to new machines without the need of specific knowledge on machine vision. We use an experimental dataset that we published to test the effectiveness of the method. We achieved very good performance with an F₁ score of 0.9674, in the identification of multiple milling head inserts. The proposed approach can be considered as a general framework for the localization and identification of machining pieces from images taken from mechanical monitoring systems.     

Multisensory fusion based virtual tool wear sensing for ubiquitous manufacturing

Pervasiveness of ubiquitous computing advances the manufacturing scheme into a ubiquitous manufacturing era which poses significant challenges on sensing technology and system reliability. To improve manufacturing system reliability, this paper presents a new virtual tool wear sensing technique based on multisensory data fusion and artificial intelligence model for tool condition monitoring. It infers the difficult-to-measure tool wear parameters (e.g. tool wear width) by fusing in-process multisensory data (e.g. force, vibration, etc.) with dimension reduction technique and support vector regression model. Different state-of-the-art dimension reduction techniques including kernel principal component analysis, locally linear embedding, isometric feature mapping, and minimum redundancy maximum relevant method have been investigated for feature fusion in a virtual sensing model, and the kernel principal component analysis performs best in terms of sensing accuracy. The effectiveness of the developed virtual tool wear sensing technique is experimentally validated in a set of machining tool run-to-failure tests on a computer numerical control milling machine. The results show that the estimated tool wear width through virtual sensing is comparable to that measured offline by a microscope instrument in terms of accuracy, moreover, in a more cost-effective manner.     

Modelling of the cutting tool stresses in machining of Inconel 718 using artificial neural networks

This study covers two main subjects: (i) The experimental and theoretical analysis: the cutting forces and indirectly cutting tool stresses, affecting the cutting tool life during machining in metal cutting, are one of very important parameters to be necessarily known to select the economical cutting conditions and to mount the workpiece on machine tools securely. In this paper, the cutting tool stresses (normal, shear and von Mises) in machining of nickel-based super alloy Inconel 718 have been investigated in respect of the variations in the cutting parameters (cutting speed, feed rate and depth of cut). The cutting forces were measured by a series of experimental measurements and the stress distributions on the cutting tool were analysed by means of the finite element method (FEM) using ANSYS software. ANSYS stress results showed that in point of the cutting tool wear, especially from von Mises stress distributions, the ceramic cutting insert may be possible worn at the distance equal to the depth of cut on the base cutting edge of the cutting tool. Thence, this wear mode will be almost such as the notch wear, and the flank wear on the base cutting edge and grooves in relief face. In terms of the cost of the process of machining, the cutting speed and the feed rate values must be chosen between 225 and 400 m/min, and 0.1 and 0.125 mm/rev, respectively. (ii) The mathematical modelling analysis: the use of artificial neural network (ANN) has been proposed to determine the cutting tool stresses in machining of Inconel 718 as analytic formulas based on working parameters. The best fitting set was obtained with ten neurons in the hidden-layer using back propagation algorithm. After training, it was found the R² values are closely 1.     

Process planning for Floor machining of 2½D pockets based on a morphed spiral tool path pattern

This work proposes a process planning for machining of a Floor which is the most prominent elemental machining feature in a 2½D pocket. Traditionally, the process planning of 2½D pocket machining is posed as stand-alone problem involving either tool selection, tool path generation or machining parameter selection, resulting in sub-optimal plans. For this reason, the tool path generation and feed selection is proposed to be integrated with an objective of minimizing machining time under realistic cutting force constraints for given pocket geometry and cutting tool. A morphed spiral tool path consisting of G¹ continuous biarc and arc spline is proposed as a possible tool path generation strategy with the capability of handling islands in pocket geometry. Proposed tool path enables a constant feed rate and consistent cutting force during machining in typical commercial CNC machine tool. The constant feed selection is based on the tool path and cutting tool geometries as well as dynamic characteristics of mechanical structure of the machine tool to ensure optimal machining performance. The proposed tool path strategy is compared with those generated by commercial CAM software. The calculated tool path length and measured dry machining time show considerable advantage of the proposed tool path. For optimal machining parameter selection, the feed per tooth is iteratively optimized with a pre-calibrated cutting force model, under a cutting force constraint to avoid tool rupture. The optimization result shows around 32% and 40% potential improvement in productivity with one and two feed rate strategies respectively.     

Physics-guided logistic classification for tool life modeling and process parameter optimization in machining

This paper describes a physics-guided logistic classification method for tool life modeling and process parameter optimization in machining. Tool life is modeled using a classification method since the exact tool life cannot be measured in a typical production environment where tool wear can only be directly measured when the tool is replaced. In this study, laboratory tool wear experiments are used to simulate tool wear data normally collected during part production. Two states are defined: tool not worn (class 0) and tool worn (class 1). The non-linear reduction in tool life with cutting speed is modeled by applying a logarithmic transformation to the inputs for the logistic classification model. A method for interpretability of the logistic model coefficients is provided by comparison with the empirical Taylor tool life model. The method is validated using tool wear experiments for milling. Results show that the physics-guided logistic classification method can predict tool life using limited datasets. A method for pre-process optimization of machining parameters using a probabilistic machining cost model is presented. The proposed method offers a robust and practical approach to tool life modeling and process parameter optimization in a production environment.     

Process planning for Floor machining of 2½D pockets based on a morphed spiral tool path pattern

This work proposes a process planning for machining of a Floor which is the most prominent elemental machining feature in a 2½D pocket. Traditionally, the process planning of 2½D pocket machining is posed as stand-alone problem involving either tool selection, tool path generation or machining parameter selection, resulting in sub-optimal plans. For this reason, the tool path generation and feed selection is proposed to be integrated with an objective of minimizing machining time under realistic cutting force constraints for given pocket geometry and cutting tool. A morphed spiral tool path consisting of G¹ continuous biarc and arc spline is proposed as a possible tool path generation strategy with the capability of handling islands in pocket geometry. Proposed tool path enables a constant feed rate and consistent cutting force during machining in typical commercial CNC machine tool. The constant feed selection is based on the tool path and cutting tool geometries as well as dynamic characteristics of mechanical structure of the machine tool to ensure optimal machining performance. The proposed tool path strategy is compared with those generated by commercial CAM software. The calculated tool path length and measured dry machining time show considerable advantage of the proposed tool path. For optimal machining parameter selection, the feed per tooth is iteratively optimized with a pre-calibrated cutting force model, under a cutting force constraint to avoid tool rupture. The optimization result shows around 32% and 40% potential improvement in productivity with one and two feed rate strategies respectively.     

Tool wear monitoring and prognostics challenges: a comparison of connectionist methods toward an adaptive ensemble model

In a high speed milling operation the cutting tool acts as a backbone of machining process, which requires timely replacement to avoid loss of costly workpiece or machine downtime. To this aim, prognostics is applied for predicting tool wear and estimating its life span to replace the cutting tool before failure. However, the life span of cutting tools varies between minutes or hours, therefore time is critical for tool condition monitoring. Moreover, complex nature of manufacturing process requires models that can accurately predict tool degradation and provide confidence for decisions. In this context, a data-driven connectionist approach is proposed for tool condition monitoring application. In brief, an ensemble of Summation Wavelet-Extreme Learning Machine models is proposed with incremental learning scheme. The proposed approach is validated on cutting force measurements data from Computer Numerical Control machine. Results clearly show the significance of our proposition.     

Condition monitoring of CNC machining using adaptive control

In this work, an adaptive control constraint system has been developed for computer numerical control (CNC) turning based on the feedback control and adaptive control/self-tuning control. In an adaptive controlled system, the signals from the online measurement have to be processed and fed back to the machine tool controller to adjust the cutting parameters so that the machining can be stopped once a certain threshold is crossed. The main focus of the present work is to develop a reliable adaptive control system, and the objective of the control system is to control the cutting parameters and maintain the displacement and tool flank wear under constraint valves for a particular workpiece and tool combination as per ISO standard. Using Matlab Simulink, the digital adaption of the cutting parameters for experiment has confirmed the efficiency of the adaptively controlled condition monitoring system, which is reflected in different machining processes at varying machining conditions. This work describes the state of the art of the adaptive control constraint (ACC) machining systems for turning. AISI4140 steel of 150 BHN hardness is used as the workpiece material, and carbide inserts are used as cutting tool material throughout the experiment. With the developed approach, it is possible to predict the tool condition pretty accurately, if the feed and surface roughness are measured at identical conditions. As part of the present research work, the relationship between displacement due to vibration, cutting force, flank wear, and surface roughness has been examined.     

多传感器数据融合技术在刀具状态监测中的应用

提出了一种基于混合智能融合技术进行铣刀磨损量监测和预测方法。利用多传感器对切削力和振动信号进行监测,通过频率变换提取切削力特征量,采用小波包分解技术提取振动信号特征量。通过信号特征值的组合,分别探讨了几种混合智能数据融合技术——小波神经网络、遗传神经网络、遗传小波神经网络对刀具磨损量的预测效果。试验分析表明:提出的几种基于多传感器的混合智能数据融合技术均能够有效地完成刀具磨损量监测和预测,同时,对这几种数据融合技术各自的特点进行了比较分析。     

On line tool wear monitoring based on auto associative neural network

This paper presents a new tool wear monitoring method based on auto associative neural network. The main advantage of the model lies that it can be built only by the data under normal cutting condition. Therefore, the training samples of the tool wear status are no longer needed during the training process that makes it easier to be applied in real industrial environment than other neural network models. An averaged distance indicator is proposed to denote not only the occurrence of the tool wear but also its severity. Moreover, the Levenberg–Marquardt (LM) training algorithm is introduced to improve the convergence accuracy of the auto associative neural network. Based on the proposed method, a framework for online tool condition monitoring is illustrated and the cutting force data under different tool wear status are collected to simulate the online modeling and monitoring process for the rough and finish milling respectively. The results show that the proposed indicator can reflect the evolution process of tool wear correctly and the LM algorithm is more accurate in comparison with the gradient descent methods. Therefore, it casts new light on practical application of neural network in the field of on line tool condition monitoring.     

基于混合智能计算的铣刀状态监测

提出了一种基于混合智能融合技术进行铣刀磨损量监测和预测方法。利用多传感器对切削力和振动信号进行监测,通过频率变换提取切削力特征量,采用小波包分解技术提取振动信号特征量。通过信号特征值的组合,分别探讨了几种混合智能数据融合技术-小波神经网络,遗传神经网络,遗传小波神经网络对刀具磨损量的预测效果。实验分析表明,提出的几种基于多传感器的混合智能数据融合技术均能够有效地完成刀具磨损量监测和预测,同时对它们各自的特点进行了比较分析。     

Fuzzy approach to select machining parameters in electrical discharge machining (EDM) and ultrasonic-assisted EDM processes

Condition monitoring of the machining process is very important in today's precision manufacturing, especially in the electrical discharge machining (EDM). This paper introduces a fuzzy-based algorithm for prediction of material removal rate (MRR), tool wear ratio (TWR), and surface roughness (R_z, R_k) in the EDM and ultrasonic-assisted EDM (US/EDM) processes. In this system, discharge current, pulse duration, and ultrasonic vibration of tool are the input variables and outputs are MRR, TWR, R_z, and R_k. The proposed fuzzy model in this study provides a more precise and easy selection of EDM and US/EDM input parameters, respectively for the required MRR, TWR, R_z, and R_k, which leads to better machining conditions and decreases the machining costs. The fuzzy modeling of EDM and US/EDM were able to predict the experimental results with accuracies more than 90%.     

Microstructuring of non-conductive silicon carbide by electrical discharge machining

The electrical discharge machining process is an established process for machining materials regardless of their mechanical properties. Thus this process is especially attractive for materials which are hard to machine with conventional machining methods. The only requirement a material has to fulfil is having a certain electrical conductivity. Ceramic materials, (e.g. zirconia, silicon nitride or silicon carbide) exhibit excellent mechanical properties but are mostly electrically non-conductive. This can be compensated by an applied, electrically conductive assisting electrode. With this modification, the electrical discharge machining of non-conductive ceramic material is enabled. In this study the micro electrical discharge machining of non-conductive sintered silicon carbide is investigated. The drilling process shows instabilities due to the excessive generation of carbon products. A stabilisation of the process up to the maximum depth of 420 μm is realized by two approaches: adapting process parameters and adapting the tool electrode geometry. An analysis of the amount of infeed used in a milling process shows that an infeed of 15 μm has the best material removal rate to tool wear rate ratio. A maximum material removal rate of 3.58 × 10^?3 mm³/min is achieved. Detached microstructures with an aspect ratio of 30 are machined. A conducted surface analysis indicates that the present removal mechanism is thermally induced spalling. Furthermore no heat affected zone is present in the machined near-surface area.     

Feature-filtered fuzzy clustering for condition monitoring of tool wear

Condition monitoring is of vital importance in order to assess the state of tool wear in unattended manufacturing. Various methods have been attempted, and it is considered that fuzzy clustering techniques may provide a realistic solution to the classification of tool wear states. Unlike fuzzy clustering methods used previously, which postulate cutting condition parameters as constants and define clustering centres subjectively, this paper presents a fuzzy clustering method based on filtered features for the monitoring of tool wear under different cutting conditions. The method uses partial factorial experimental design and regression analysis for the determination of coefficients of a filter, then calculates clustering centres for filtering the effect of various cutting conditions, and finally uses a developed mathematical model of membership functions for fuzzy classification. The validity and reliability of the method are experimentally illustrated using a CNC machining centre for milling.     

Tool condition monitoring using reflectance of chip surface and neural network

A wide variety of tool condition monitoring techniques has been introduced in recent years. Among them, tool force monitoring, tool vibration monitoring and tool acoustics emission monitoring are the three most common indirect tool condition monitoring techniques. Using multiple intelligent sensors, these techniques are able to monitor tool condition with varying degrees of success. This paper presents a novel approach for the estimation of tool wear using the reflectance of cutting chip surface and a back propagation neural network. It postulates that the condition of a tool can be determined using the surface finish and color of a cutting chip. A series of experiments has been carried out. The experimental data obtained was used to train the back propagation neural network. Subsequently, the trained neural network was used to perform tool wear prediction. Results show that the prediction is in good agreement with the flank wear measured experimentally.     

Automated tool sequence selection for 3-axis machining of free-form pockets

This paper describes an efficient method to find the lowest cost tool sequence for rough machining free-form pockets on a 3-axis milling machine. The free-form pocket is approximated to within a predefined tolerance of the desired surface using series of 2.5-D layers of varying thicknesses that can be efficiently removed with flat-end milling cutters. A graph-based method finds an optimal sequence of tools for rough machining the approximated pocket. The algorithm used here can be tuned to suit any available tool set and preferred cost models. The tool sequence that is obtained is near optimal, and may take into account tool wear, as well as various overhead costs of the machine shop.     

Research on multi-signal milling tool wear prediction method based on GAF-ResNext

A key aspect impacting the quality and efficiency of machining is the degree of tool wear. If the tool failure is not discovered in time, the quality of workpiece processing decreases, and even the machine tool itself may be harmed. To increase machining quality, efficiency and facilitate the intelligent advancement of the manufacturing industry, tool wear prediction is crucial. This research offers a multi-signal tool wear prediction method based on the Gramian angular field (GAF) and depth aggregation residual transform neural network (ResNext), enabling fast and accurate tool wear prediction. Specifically, the required one-dimensional signal is obtained through preprocessing including intercepting, splicing and wavelet threshold denoising of the force and vibration signals, and GAF is used to encode the obtained one-dimensional signal to generate a (224 × 224) data matrix. ResNext automatically extracts the features of the data matrix, establish the relationship between features and tool wear, and creates a tool wear prediction model based on GAF-ResNext. The ability of this method to predict tool wear has been trained and tested by milling experimental data. The experimental findings demonstrate the real-time, accuracy, dependability and universality of this method. This method has a better effect when compared to other research methods. The study's findings can boost machining productivity and offer technical support for intelligent tool wear early warning and intelligent manufacturing.